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Last month I was on a regional train from Trnava to Bratislava in Slovakia accompanying my aunt who makes this trip every day for work. The train is connected to an electric line above the track, which naturally got me thinking about energy. The Bohunice Nuclear Power Plant supplies most of the electricity in this region so I thought it was pretty neat that I'm using public transportation power by nuclear energy. A robust transportation system connected to an electric grid with dependable and clean nuclear energy can really reduce dependence on fossil fuels and cut carbon emissions, which is already being done in some areas, as evidenced by Slovakia.

My parents are from Slovakia and most of my extended family still lives there, so I visit quite often. Slovaks are very favorable of nuclear energy, probably because it provides about half of their electricity. It is dependable and cheap and the plants provide jobs. There are two power plants with a total of four nuclear reactors and two more under construction. A new reactor block at Bohunice is also planned.

When he still lived in Slovakia, my father actually worked on the district heating system from the Bohunice plant to Trnava. Large pipes transport excess heat (in the form of steam) from the power plant to the city and provide heat for large buildings. This is a very energy efficient and sustainable process and is prevalent in Eastern Europe and Russia. The steam line is usually the tertiary loop so it is not radioactive.

Energy independence in Eastern Europe is important and especially as tensions between the US/EU and Russia arise. Slovaks are also concerned about UN sanctions against Russia because their nuclear technology is Russian so they need to be able to work with Russian companies and buy Russian parts. Worldwide tensions can have serious implications on the energy sector in Europe.

University of Tennessee nuclear engineering graduate student Alicia Swift had a chance to jump into international nuclear issues from the beginning of her career. As a part of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Graduate Fellowship Program (NGFP), she spent a year at the NNSA headquarters forming crucial components to their current research and future careers at the DOE national laboratories.

At the 2014 American Nuclear Society (ANS) Annual Meeting, Swift elaborated on shared the global impact of her work while at the NNSA. In particular, Swift worked on the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), where she was responsible for the physical protection of nuclear materials in Central America. Her team conducted training on radiological safety and security and installed physical protection measures in places like Mexico City and Barbados. Swift now conducts her graduate research as Los Alamos National Laboratory in neutron imaging.

The NNSA Graduate Fellowship provides graduate students and recent graduates an opportunity to work on national security projects sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The fellowship is a one-year program catered to students interested in nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. The fellowship attracts students from technical backgrounds and policy backgrounds and can be a unique learning experience for both.

Three years after the tsunami that caused the meltdown at Fukushima Daichii, Japanese academics shared concern over the continued use of “absolute safety” measures in the country. The methods used by the Japanese Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) rely upon the concept, where historical earthquake data is used to establish a standard which all nuclear plants are required to meet. However, these methods are considered to be excessively conservative, and may put several nuclear plants at risk of shutting down if they prevail.Professor Koji Okumura of Hiroshima University explained that the NRA seismic activity standards do not allow for the use of probabilistic analysis methods, even following the accident at Fukushima Daichii. This differs from the United States, where probabilistic analysis methods have been used by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for characterizing seismic behavior since 1997.The benefit of probabilistic analysis methods is that they allow for a technical judgment to be made on the effect of an uncommon hypothetical situation, such as an earthquake, on nuclear plant operation. Characterization of these uncertainties allow for regulators and plant operators to distinguish between real plant safety issues and issues which just appear to be unsafe. They may also allow for more economic operation of plants, as safety features can be applied where they are needed most.Much of the panel discussion, which took place at the 2014 American Nuclear Society (ANS) Annual Meeting, focused on the technical aspects of characterizing the uncertainty of seismic behavior in regions which lack detectable faults, also called diffuse or background seismicity regions. Experts from the NRC encouraged Japanese regulators to embrace probabilistic analysis methods in order to prevent getting blindsided by more likely but smaller scale incidents that may occur.They also recommended Japanese regulators to pursue establishing a committee of global experts. These experts could then assist in interpreting seismic analysis results and their effect on the design and operation of nuclear plants. This committee would follow the example of the Senior Seismic Hazard Analysis Committee, established by the NRC in the 1980’s.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) does more than just safeguard nuclear material, they also have many programs to assist countries using nuclear technology. The Food and Agriculture program is assisting Morocco with malnutrition issues, as highlighted in the video below.

What do you think about using vitamin fortification to battle malnutrition?

Last week I was thrilled to attend a lunch program with ambassadors from the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), hosted by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The ambassadors present at the lunch and on the panel included:

Dato Yusoff Abd Hamid, Ambassador of Brunei to the US

Seng Soukhathivong, Ambassador of Laos to the US

Awang Adek bin Hussin, Ambassador of Malaysia to the US

Kyaw Myo Htut, Ambassador of Myanmar to the US

Ashok Mirpuri, Ambassador of Singapore to the US

Vijavat Isarabhakdi, Ambassador of Thailand to the US

With a combined GDP of more than $2.2 trillion and a population of 620 million people, the ten ASEAN member states represent a region of critical economic and geostrategic importance to the United States. ASEAN is the third-largest Asian trading partner of the United States, after China and Japan, and U.S. investment in the region is growing.

Ambassador Mirpuri of Singapore outlined that that main goals of ASEAN are to create a production base that is economically competitive, ensure equitable development for all member states, and to fully integrate with the global economy. The United States has been critical to the success of ASEAN over the past 50 years and will continue to be essential in the future.

The panelists were asked an important question by the moderator prompting them to discuss what factors will be important to ensure future economic growth in the region. The ambassadors stated that ASEAN is well-prepared for future growth, but no mention was made of meeting future energy needs. So, I prompted the question of how they plan to meet energy needs with growing economic development, increasing population, and a higher quality of life. The answers were vague but I was able to discuss this issue further with Ambassador Mirpuri after the session. He said that Singapore is very concerned with energy issues because they import ALL of their energy. He also said that current nuclear reactor technology is not suitable for their needs. However, Singapore was looking at the nuclear energy option before Fukushima.

The ASEAN Centre for Energy does have a civilian nuclear energy program in cooperation with China, Japan, and South Korea. Right now, Vietnam and the Philippines seem to be the most interested in nuclear energy development in the region. Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand were also interested in the past but plans were delayed after the Fukushima accident.

In my opinion, energy is one of the most important factors for future economic development. Being a production base requires electricity, infrastructure, and transportation. As the economy develops, the middle class also grows and quality of life is directly related to electricity production. Meeting energy needs in a sustainable way is an issue that needs to be discussed now, and especially in growing economies.

The Head of the Department of Safeguards at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Tero Varjoranta, is interviewed in this video and provides a great overview of the international safeguards process. His department ensures that countries are not making nuclear weapons out of out of peaceful nuclear technology, such as research and commercial nuclear power plants.

Have you seen this Periodic Table of the Elements categorized by country location of discovery? This image was created by science communicator Jamie Gallagher by The Smithsonian.

Click to see larger image.

From Jamie Gallagher:

One of my favourites has to be polonium, though, the first element to be discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie. They were working in a modified shed with substances so dangerously radioactive their notes are still too active to be handled safely.Working together they isolated this element and later named it Polonium after Marie’s home country. (A country, I may add, that turned her away from her pursuit of education as she was a politically interested female). It was her hope that by naming the element after Poland she could generate interested in the independence (from Germany) campaign for the country. Yet the victory comes in under the French flag where the work was carried out.It remains to this day the only element to be named after a political cause, and a wonderful tribute to a phenomenal woman.

While researching an obscure topic related to my doctoral thesis, I happened upon multiple references to a 1969 paper in Kernenergie - an academic journal published in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), or East Germany.

Typically, this is every academic’s nightmare – an obscure paper published behind the Iron Curtain a quarter century before the internet in a country that no longer exists. Fortunately, I had an inroad. I emailed a German relative who lives in Weimar and manages IT at the University of Jena. He walked into the library basement and scanned me a copy!

Not only was the paper valuable for my research, but it also made me think; Kernenergie. English, or Anglo-Saxon, is a Germanic language. Kern is the root of kernel, as in a kernel of corn. So in German, “nuclear” is “kernel”.

My next thought was, “Well, that’s interesting. I’m sure kern(el) has different overtones in German, but the English connotation is just so weaksauce – such a contrast with the fearsome connotation of nuclear. Hey, what if we started referring to ‘nuclear energy’ as ‘kernel energy’?”

Nuclear energy has a perception problem, and a large swath of that problem stems from the word nuclear – its place in our history, its media hype, and its resulting connotation. The word has been poisoned. So what if we simply chose a more benign (but equally suitable) word? How would that one superficial alteration – a mere word – change public perception of “kernel technology”?

Instead of imagining bombs and mushroom clouds, people would think of popcorn. If it sounds like something we put it in our mouths, it can’t be that bad. How much more would the public approve of new “kernel plants”?

Some may view such rebranding as nothing more than cynical politics – manipulating words to “trick” the public. I don’t disagree, but unfortunately, this is how the game is played. Whether we like it or not, nuclear energy is a political issue, and in politics, every word is poll-tested. There’s a reason why “civil unions” preceded “marriage”, and there’s also a reason why “nuclear energy” is more popular than “nuclear power”. Words matter.

Of course, there would inevitably be drawbacks. “Kernel engineering” wouldn’t be nearly so sexy. The “danger” would be gone. We nuclear engineers would lose some of our debonair, James-Bond-like charm - the hallmark of our profession. Nevertheless, even the most prolific “nuclear rakes” would be compelled to sacrifice some of their charisma for the betterment of mankind through clean, sustainable energy.

The Nuclear Security Summit is ongoing this week at The Hague in Netherlands and one of the biggest successes is that Japan has agreed to allow the United States to take over a stockpile of weapons-grade nuclear material in Japan. This material is at the Fast Critical Assembly at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency and was used/produced in research for fast reactor development, not for nuclear weapons. However, the material is weapons-grade and thus its security is a concern.

President Obama's goal has been to secure nuclear material around the globe, mainly to protect from theft by non-state actors (e.g. terrorists). However, the Administration's recent decision to cut funding for the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility (read post) does not show commitment to nonproliferation goals.

This agreement with Japan says that the United States will remove and dispose of the nuclear material. Having a MOX facility to put weapons-grade plutonium into commercial fuel and burn it in a reactor is the best way to dispose of it because it becomes too radioactive to use in a weapons. What is the point of taking control of the nuclear material in Japan if we can't dispose of it?

Three years ago today a 9.0 magnitude earthquake happened off of the Pacific coast of Tohoku and Japan is still recovering. The earthquake and subsequent tsunami resulted in 15,884 people dead, 2633 people missing, and 6148 people injured, with a total of over 400,000 buildings half or full collapsed (as of March 10, 2014). The tsunami also resulted in accidents and damage to three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. No deaths or injuries to the public have occurred from the radioactive contamination.

In the United States and around the world, we often talk about the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant but forget that the other damage from the earthquake and tsunami was far, far more catastrophic. The earthquake was the strongest ever recorded in Japan and also the costliest natural disaster in world history. The NY Times provides an interactive side-by-side look at some of the damaged areas.

All 6 reactors are being decommissioned at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Full decommissioning (site dismantled and all radioactive substances removed) will take 30-40 years but removal of nuclear fuel debris around the site is expected to take 6-8 years.

Water is continuously being pumped through the reactors to keep the fuel cool and water coming from the damaged reactors is contaminated and is therefore filtered. Some leakage of contaminated water is mixing with ground water and going into the ocean (fact sheet).

Used fuel from all 6 reactors is being moved to a common storage facility. Although debris fell into the used fuel pools from the earthquake/tsunami and subsequent hydrogen explosions, the pools are intact and holding the fuel safely.

TEPCO and Japanese government agencies are continuously monitoring radiation levels in the Fukushima prefecture, with oversight by international organizations. Radiation is declining exponentially due to radioactive decay and rainwater dilution. There are no immediate health risks from the contamination but long term monitoring is key (source).

No radioactive debris from the accident has been found on the West Coast, Alaska, or Hawaii and fish caught in the Pacific Ocean are safe to eat.